Library Loot July 14-20

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Eva and Marg that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!

This week Marg has the Mr. Linky where you can link your own Library Loot post anytime this week if you wish to participate.

Last Sunday I had to pile all thirty-some of the library items I had checked out on the go-back pile as I was on my way out of town. I have been at my mom's house in Longview, WA since Sunday night and there was already a small pile of books that I'd ordered from the library of my childhood, the library of my first library card waiting for me. My sister had given me permission to order them on her account a week before I left home and she picked them up. After I arrived, I ordered several more which she picked up today. That will be it until the week after next (the 26th at least) as she is leaving Monday and won't be back until Sunday. I'm going to be staying with Mom and seeing to her needs.

I'm quite nervous about that as Mom and I are both visually impaired and the thought of colliding with her and knocking her off her feet terrifies me. She is still recovering from the broken hip and resulting stroke from November 2008. My sister's solution was to tie bells on Mom's shoes and one on my right wrist. Yeah, you can laugh, I don't blame you. Mom cracked up when I first told her what we were thinking. She thought I was joking but even though I was laughing with her I was emphasizing how important it was that she not fall again and how I would feel soooooo bad if I knocked her down.

So. The books:

The Hour I First Believed [text (large print)] : a novel / Wally Lamb

I had this checked out in Phoenix several weeks ago and it had to go back unread because I'd opted to watch several DVD series I'd been in queue for instead of reading it. That was the second time in a year I'd had it checked out and didn't get to it. So with it fresh in my mind, it was one of the first novels I looked for in the Longview library catalog and when I found they too had it in large print I ordered it. It was waiting for me when I arrived but I didn't start it until today. I was past page 140 when I was called to dinner.

Losing my religion : how I lost my faith reporting on religion in America--and found unexpected peace / William Lobdell.

I was reading this last month and didn't finish it before it had to go back so when I found Longview had it too, I put in my order.

Proust was a neuroscientist / Jonah Lehrer.

Ditto for this one. My interest in this is three-fold: I've long been interested in how the mind works; it fulfills a req for the Science reading challenge and I'm reading Proust's Remembrance of Things Past in ebook (very, very slowly. slow as morning glory growing)

The family : the secret fundamentalism at the heart of American power / Jeff Sharlet

I started this one while here in Longview last January because I'd been trying to get my hands on it every since Rachel Maddow of MSNBC started interview the author and covering the C Street House in DC last year but our library didn't have it then. By the time I got back home last winter they did have a copy and I've had it out a couple times, both times waiting in a short queue, but still haven't finished it. Could have had it for another several weeks this last time but it had to go back with everything else as I left town. But I'd already ordered it from the Longview library and expected it to be waiting for me here and it was.

Aladdin's lamp : how Greek science came to Europe through the Islamic world /
by Freely, John.

I had checked this out of the Longview library last spring when I was here shortly before I went back home. Last time I checked our library system had not acquired it. I suppose I should put in a request that they do. Anyway, I ordered this one after I arrived and it was among the items my sister picked up today. As were the following:

The art & craft of the short story / by DeMarinis, Rick

I was reading this winter and spring of 09 while I was here and finding it very helpful. Our Southern Oregon system doens't have it though it has some of DeMarinis' short story collections. I tried to check it out again when I was here in January but someone else had it out. I don't know why it slipped my mind when I ordered the first batch a couple weeks ago but I glad I remembered it this week and it was available.

Banquet at Delmonico's : great minds, the Gilded Age, and the triumph of evolution in America / by Werth, Barry.

I had this checked out while here both last January and in the spring of 09. The history of the development of the theory of evolution and trying to understand the acceptance/rejection tug of war in America has been one of my pet research projects for several years. Almost a decade. This book isn't in our SO system.

The religious case against belief / by Carse, James P.

This is another one I checked out while I was here in 09 but not until a couple weeks before I left and barely got to do more than preview it and browse in it a bit.

White Protestant nation : the rise of the American conservative movement / by Lichtman, Allan J.

Had this one checked out last January and in the last month of my visit in 09 as well. This is related to research for my FOS storyworld. This one is not in our system either.

Believer, beware : first-person dispatches from the margins of faith / by Sharlet, Jeff.

This is a collection of essays by individuals with rocky relationships with the faith of their youth and a questing mind and heart for a spiritual dimension to life. Sharlet, author of The Family, mentioned above, is editor but also contributes the introduction and several essays.

The book thief / Markus Zusak

I had this out at home. It was next in line to read. I could have read it my last week at home but chose to devote that week to watching seasons 4-7 of The West Wing. I ordered it with the first Longview batch two weeks ago but it just now came in. Now I'm wishing I had waited another day to start Lamb's 1100 page novel as it is likely to renew while Zusak's is not. But if I can maintain the 140+ pages per day pace I should be able to finish both in the next three weeks. It helps that I'm not watching a lot of DVD like I was at home with 4-6 months of my requests flooding in over the last two months averaging a rate of 6-16 hours of video per week.

But I haven't sworn off video. My sister rented Precious for me Tuesday while she was grocery shopping, remembering that I'd had to send it back unwatched when I left home after waiting my turn since February. I watched it alone on my netbook in the wee hours of Wednesday morning as my sister had realized that she was too overcommitted to watch it with me in the 24 hours allotted by the rental but I had already got in queue for the Longview copy and she was able to make time tonight when it was among the items waiting at the library today. It wasn't something we could watch with Mom as the language was too raw so we were limited to late evening hours. She probably didn't really have the time tonight but wanted to anyway.

Another item waiting was Bones season 3. I had also ordered season 2 but 3 came in first. I only need to watch the last disc of season 2. That was another item I sent back without finishing last weekend. Now I've got to hope 2 comes in tomorrow (it was due today) or decide if I want to skip ahead, four or five episodes, missing the season finale, to watch 3 while I have it or let 3 go back and wait until my sister gets home next week to order them again or even wait until I get home next month to order them again there. Choices choices choices.